


Kryptonite

by yarroway



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Episode Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-20
Updated: 2013-03-20
Packaged: 2018-09-14 19:05:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9198785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yarroway/pseuds/yarroway
Summary: A House and Wilson friendship story set after 8x15, Blowing the Whistle, with a heavy dose of science fiction. Very AU.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: House, M.D. belongs to David Shore, Universal Television, Heel and Toe Productions, and a lot of other people who are not me. I'm not making any money from this.
> 
> Thanks: To srsly_yes for bearing with me through the long process of writing this thing and for her hard beta work. Thanks also to flywoman for her expert assistance. Any errors are entirely my own fault.

Chapter One

On Thursday Wilson came home to find a note taped to the TV screen. She’d found a lipstick stain on the collar of his second-best shirt—a _pink_ one. Red was her color, and she was leaving.

He tried to win Ruth back. He confessed to the indiscretion. He said, quite truthfully, that he loved only her and would never see the other woman again. This was correct, in that he didn’t know her name, number or address. They’d made use of a handy alleyway. He couldn’t have found her again if he’d wanted to, and he didn’t want to.

Ruth was not appeased. She let him know, loudly, just how badly he’d screwed up and how much she loathed him. She ended by saying she hoped he’d at least used protection.

“I’m a doctor,” Wilson said.

She sniffed, informed him that he’d foot the bill for any pharmaceuticals she needed, and slammed the door in Wilson’s face.

***

A handful of Thursdays passed. He missed Ruth. He came home every evening to an empty two bedroom condo and damned his own carelessness. Wilson hated being alone. His relationships usually ended with his infidelity, though, and there was nothing he could do about that.

It’s not like he could ever tell anyone the truth.

“You’re moping again, aren’t you?” House asked one night when he found Wilson sitting on his office balcony watching the stars. House had brought whiskey, and they toasted the night together. “You always cheat. And then you always tell them.”

“Not this time. My clothes did the talking.”

House ignored this fact in favor of his theory. “Is this your sad, pathetic way of testing them to see if they’ll love you, warts and all?” House asked.

Maybe it was. Or maybe Wilson was just too damn tired to be careful. He didn’t know anymore.

“You have to stop this,” House continued. He sounded sympathetic, something he rarely did, and Wilson ached to say that he would. Maybe what he should stop was trying to have meaningful relationships, but he knew himself well enough to know he never would.

”Sure,” Wilson said bitterly. “You stop with the drinking and recreational drugs, and I’ll stop with the women.”

“Touché,” House said, holding out his glass. “To hypocrisy.”

Wilson clinked their glasses together. “Hypocrisy.”

****

On Wilson's desk at home there was a paperweight. It was a six inch square enamel cube. It looked thoroughly unremarkable; one of a dozen tchotchkes, but this one was special. It was indestructible. It was impermeable. And it was hollow. Within, Wilson kept a few small items. Chief among them was a device that would project a chart with up-to-the-minute data displayed as a Kua’ltu graph. It was his most valued possession, and he hated it.

All these years, and the white line on the graph stayed stubbornly flat.

***

Finally, several weeks later, his phone rang with a particular trill that Wilson never ignored.

"Hello, Father."

There were no polite preliminary words. "Your heart’s not in your work."

He sounded upset. Wilson knew he must be if he'd broken away from his research to call.

"It's time to let go of that last girl. I know you loved her, but she's gone. Don't cling to loss, son. Move on."

"I--"

"Is the responsibility too much for you? Michael thought you were too young and self-absorbed, but I told him you could handle this. I need you."

There was nothing for Wilson to say to that. It was true. "I'm sorry, Father. I'll do better."

Later that night he gave the harried woman in the A&P checkout line a smile. Later yet he found himself strapped to her bed, pleased that the animal within responded so indiscriminately to stimulation.

***

_Wilson stood in the airport with a sense of dread. Something was wrong. There was danger so palpable it pressed against his chest with the force of a policeman's hand barring his way._

_Wilson turned and looked out at the runway. His dread materialized--an airplane screamed down from the sky and hurtled towards the airport. It touched down, a rolling missile speeding straight at him. Wilson screamed at his body to move, but he was frozen to the spot._

_In mockery, the plane glided to a stop. Nothing exploded. The walkway nestled itself against the plane and still nothing happened. Wilson’s heartbeat hammered through him._

_Wilson watched the passengers disembark. Normal, everyday people passed by him, each of them unremarkable. Wilson began to doubt his own perceptions, but the heaviness on his chest now had the weight of a city bus._

_Then he saw it. A man in a hooded sweatshirt with a bag slung over his shoulder passed before him, and for no reason he could name Wilson felt his fear grow. Here! This man was the source of the threat. The hood hid the man's face. Wilson edged around to get a better look, but the man was fast. People seemed to melt away from him._

_The man gave his passport to a customs agent. Wilson, elbowing his way through an endless stream of passersby, groaned in frustration as the agent waved the man through. His certainty of evil, of disaster, grew. He tried to rush over, but a large family blocked his way, with grandma in a slow-moving scooter and three small children bringing up the rear. By the time Wilson got around them, the man had entered the main concourse. Wilson raced after him, zig-zagging through the crowd._

_He was too slow. He was always just a little too slow._

_The man coughed. He didn't cover his mouth, just stood in the crowded airport and hacked sputum into the air. Wilson had the sudden certainty that this wasn't the first time, that this man had hacked and coughed his way across the sky and through the terminal. Wilson surged forward. He grabbed the man's arm and spun him around. Where he expected to see a man’s face, he saw instead the face of a wolf, white-toothed and yellow-eyed. It growled._

_The wolf’s breath was hot, and it stank. It coughed. Spittle flew out. House, who had been there beside him the whole time without Wilson quite realizing it, gasped and collapsed. Horrified, Wilson grabbed for him, but he was gone._

Wilson jerked awake.

There was no man, no airport, no contagion spreading like wildfire through a crowd. He lay down again and wiped the sweat off his face. It was only a dream. For now.

***

Another week, another call.

“Thank you for making such an effort, James. I want you to know that I understand how hard this is for you.” Father sighed. "It’s hard for me, too. The probabilities aren’t changing. Humans have only a handful of generations left before they obliterate themselves. We're not sure how, but the numbers all converge on mass extinctions there. If we can't breed some additional kindness and long range planning ability into them, they're gone…and there’s an 83.8% chance that they’ll take the other sapients with them.”

Wilson rubbed his neck. "I know." No other species had been so resistant to cross breeding. They'd tried everything, all kinds of modifications, but there seemed to be a basic, insurmountable incompatibility between their races.

****

Father oversaw the mission, but for the last quarter century he had divided his time between analyzing the increasingly anomalous results and convincing the increasingly concerned Elders to continue their support. Five years in, he had appointed Wilson his assistant, a first-among-equals Orwellian position which freed Father to focus on larger concerns.

Like any other member of the Order of the Savior, Wilson had been involved in similar projects, but only for long enough to do his own small part. The mission to Earth was different. Wilson had never spent so long away from home before. He was operating independently a lot of the time. He had studied the risks of long-term assignments, but reading about it and doing it were two very different things.

Wilson knew that there was a line between giving your heart to a project involving people, and giving it to people. He also knew that he had crossed it a long time ago.


	2. Chapter Two

Wilson was used to worrying about House. The bike, the drugs, the self-destructive behaviors...they were all distressingly normal. In spite of that, or perhaps because of it, Wilson's worry didn’t increase much when he noticed House’s symptoms. House had a long history of lying. He might be angling for drugs, or trying to manipulate someone into something, or aiming to prove some obscure point to himself. The odds were against his being genuinely ill.

Besides, if Wilson panicked every time something happened to House, he’d be in a psych. ward by now.

Wilson didn’t insist when House refused to cooperate with a basic checkup and the hepatic encephalopathy tests, but his anxiety grew. Still, he wasn’t going to run to Foreman over it. He was done trusting House to anyone but himself. If House continued to fare poorly Wilson would simply have to adopt a sneakier approach. In the meantime he waited for the lies to be revealed and House to come into his office crowing over his victory. He firmly believed that this was what would happen.

Wilson nonetheless breathed a sigh of relief when Chase, eager to vindicate himself, told Wilson and Foreman the whole thing in the cafeteria. By going to Foreman, Chase said, he had protected the patient and done what House secretly wanted. He’d passed the test.

Foreman nodded. “I knew he wouldn’t stand for a suspension,” he said smugly. “House came clean as soon as I threatened him with a medical workup. He was just screwing with us.”

Threatened with a medical workup. Not had a medical workup. So either House gave up the game to avoid a suspension, in which case his deception had been purposeless, which was very unlike him, or...or House claimed deception in order to avoid the workup.

Because something was wrong.

Wilson’s tray fell from nerveless fingers. His vision grayed. Gravity shifted.

“Wilson!”

***

It was skin-pricklingly, swelteringly hot. He was leading a floating convoy, paddling wearily through half-submerged high-rises. Things scraped beneath the boat. The bodies were mostly gone, but every so often one of them, bloated and chewed on, would rise like a nightmare from the depths.

"Snake!" came the cry. Wilson--whose name wasn't Wilson anymore, but that was still how he thought of himself-- put his paddle down carefully and drew his gun. By the time he turned, the python had attached itself to the woman behind him, and he couldn't fire. Wilson and two others wrestled the thing off her and flung it away. It fell with a splash. Glancing back, Wilson saw his own stunned, weary horror reflected in the faces of those he led.

His radio buzzed.

"You're late,” came Father’s voice. “Get to the shuttle. We're losing our window."

"I want to get this group to safety, Father. We're only a day from land."

"There is nothing here for them. Saving this handful makes no difference. We failed.”

“It makes a difference to them. Why not give them as much time as we can?” How ironic that now, at the end, he’d be back to kindly Doctor Wilson, carving out as much time as possible for his terminal patients.

“Sometimes there's just nothing we can do,” Father said in a choked voice. “They doomed themselves. Perhaps they sensed somehow that they were an evolutionary mistake. It’s hard, but we have to accept our losses and move on.”

Wilson thought about House, the most self-destructive man he had ever known, and his insatiable desire for sensation, experience, and knowledge. He remembered piano music and a whiskey-cracked voice. House would say he was being an idiot and should get off this hunk of rock while he could. The thought made Wilson smile.

"They have an appetite for life. They just don't think things through. There's a little more time. Give me until the day after tomorrow to see this group to sanctuary and get to you. I can't just leave them."

"I'll have a shuttle offshore. Make it there in time. I don’t want any more delays."

Sweat ran down his face and bare back. Recently modified lungs made it easier for him to breathe in the humidity but his hundred-strong group had no such advantages. Wilson slowed his pace.

He remembered this city as it had been, all soaring steel and broad avenues. Now he paddled many feet above where he had once walked, and the air tasted like seawater and ash.

***

Wilson woke feeling groggy and lost.

"You fainted," House accused gleefully.

Wilson blinked, uncertain where he was. "Watch out for the pythons."

"You're seeing snakes." House said, sounding intrigued. "Someone drugged you. And here I thought I was your only friend. You've been holding out on me."

"They hide in the water.”

"Do you see any water?” House asked.

Wilson glanced around, seeing the curtain wall and medical equipment. The world shifted back into place. He was in an ER. He saw no water, no snakes, no refugees, and the temperature was an air-conditioned 72 degrees. Wilson covered his face with his hands and groaned.

"Python got you?"

Wilson sighed. "Just a dream. I'm awake now."

"You fainted, and you were disoriented and confused on awakening. I'm ordering a CT and full blood work," House told him. The set of House's jaw belied his light tone.

"I'm fine," Wilson protested.

"Wilson, you passed out."

"I experienced an episode of syncope," Wilson corrected primly.

"That's what I said. You fainted. Doctors who faint in the cafeteria get scans and labs. It's in the employee handbook."

At the mention of medical tests everything came flooding back. It was horribly ironic that House was threatening him with tests, when House was the one who needed a work-up. Wilson's fear screamed at him to confront House with his suspicions and demand an answer. He had to learn what was wrong.

House was still talking. "…meaning either your blood pressure dropped suddenly, or you have a heart condition, or you're pregnant."

Wilson took a breath. He clamped down on his runaway emotions. "Or it means that I didn't eat breakfast, which I didn't."

House scowled at this prosaic explanation. "Though the hypnopompic hallucinations suggest an underlying neurological disease."

Wilson sighed.

***

Several hours and many tests later, the scowl was still on House's face when he came into Wilson's room looking over a sheaf of test results.

"You're fine," he accused, transferring his scowl from the papers to Wilson. "Foreman ordered me to discharge you."

"I assume from your expression you aren't going to do that."

"Course I am. Then I'm going to drive you home and stick around to make sure you don't start seeing snakes again."

Well, this presented possibilities. He was supposed to go to House's place Friday night, where he could drug House and run his tests, but Wilson didn't want to wait that long for answers if he didn’t have to. He also didn't like the hospital's equipment. He intended to use things a little more high tech than centrifuges and MRIs. So Wilson said, "Fine, you can drive me home. But just drop me off. I want to eat something and get some sleep."

"Sure," House agreed.

He gave in easily enough that Wilson knew he was lying.

As predicted, House followed Wilson inside. He made excuse after excuse to stay, and Wilson met each one with feigned annoyance. He gave House enough time to eat dinner. Then, when House was in the middle of explaining some theory about Adams and her ex, Wilson straightened up from the dishwasher, reached into his pocket, and sprayed an aerosol directly into House's face. House hung there for a moment, mouth and eyes open wide, looking comically surprised. Then he slumped to the floor.

"Get up, you lush," Wilson said amiably, hauling House to his feet and slinging House's arm across his shoulders. "I'll take you home." He continued this talk as House stumbled and slurred his way into the elevator, through the lobby and into the car. Lolling in the passenger seat, House mumbled something about not being drunk, but Wilson ignored this just as he did every time he picked House up from a bar at closing time.

Wilson drove out to the shuttle and all but carried House inside. He increased power to the camouflage circuits, engaged the autopilot for takeoff, and strapped House down. The medical kit contained the regulation amount of sedative, and in a moment House was safely unconscious.

Wilson strapped himself into the pilot's seat and let the auto run through the rest of its pre-flight prep. He double-checked as it went, but all was in working order. He let the computer handle things from there, because calculating all the adjustments in their flight plan was a pain in the ass.

He'd be home--as close to it as possible, anyway-- in half an hour.

***

Wilson docked the shuttle in the mothership's belly. The Mission House bay was big, and mostly empty, with most of their shuttles hidden on the planet's surface. Wilson wheeled House through it, down the corridor and into the lab. He engaged the privacy lock in case anyone should wander by. He wasn't sure how Father would take him bringing House aboard, and he wanted to finish before he found out. He hooked House up to the monitors. The robotic lab assistant descended from the ceiling from its long cable. Wilson told it what to do. It’s six spiderlike arms whirled as it took miniscule biopsies, a blood sample, and a body scan. Then it sat, gurgling to itself as it processed all its data. In a few moments the main computer displayed the results.

House's brain was fine, but his liver was failing rapidly. His heart showed signs of damage from the myocardial infarction a few years ago and his kidneys were functioning at only 30% of normal, probably secondary to all the drugs.

House was going to die. Soon. Sooner if he kept on with the alcohol and drugs.

The Order had procedures for everything, even this. Missions interfered sometimes to save key figures--scientists, artists, leaders, people who made their species better. It was a rare thing, though, and House didn't exactly fit the textbook description. Wilson thought he might be able to get Father to agree with him, but asking for permission to save House meant the very real chance that he’d be turned down, and what would he do then?

He couldn’t risk it. This was House’s only chance. Wilson could replicate his findings on PPTH’s equipment, but House, a convicted felon and drug addict with multi-organ failure, would never be placed on the transplant list.

“Damn it!” Wilson couldn’t save humanity. He couldn’t save the Earth. And now if he followed the rules he probably wouldn’t even be able to save House.

The _hell_ with procedure. He was not going to let House die. Wilson gave the computer new instructions.


	3. Chapter Three

Wilson was sorting through DNA samples when the intercom crackled to life. “Who’s in lab four?”

They’d noticed him. “James,” Wilson said, scrambling for a story he could use to justify his presence.

“James! It’s Ryan!” She sounded excited. “I haven’t seen you in ages. I’ll be right down.”

“No,” Wilson took a breath. “I’m in the middle of something delicate. I’ll come up when I can, but I can’t stop now.”

“Okay,” Ryan grumbled. “But you’d better come see me before you leave. I’ve been stuck here waiting to get my eggs harvested for two days now and I’m bored.”

Wilson mumbled his assent, and wiped his palms on his pants. He’d never lied to Ryan before. He’d never lied to any of them.

***

It would take several more hours for the equipment to redifferentiate House’s epithelial cells into healthy liver, heart and kidney cells, and force grow them into little colonies it would then introduce into House’s body. Wilson was stuck in this lab until then.

Wilson stifled a yawn. He was tired, and there was nothing he had to do right now. The alarm would wake him in a few hours, sooner if anything went wrong. Wilson unfolded the cot they kept in the storage locker and lay down.

He woke in panic with no clear idea why. He had some vague sense that there had been a blast of sound and heat. Had he dreamed of a nuclear blast? Or was the roar the sound of people laughing and the heat that of extreme embarrassment when he showed up for a Board meeting without his pants? Wilson ran shaking hands through his hair and tried to put the nightmare out of his mind.

He tidied up a little. He made tea. When he started tracing fingertip designs in the soggy tea leaves he knew it was time to find something more interesting to do. He decided to replicate some of the old experiments. It had been a long time since they’d had fresh human samples, and he should take advantage of the opportunity.

Wilson extracted sperm from House. A few minutes later, he heard House stir. He turned around to find House staring wide-eyed at the infirmary. He tried to sit up, but the drugs made that impossible.

"What the hell? I can't move!"

"Sleep paralysis," Wilson told him.

"My feet are cold, and my leg hurts. This isn't a dream.”

Wilson grabbed a blanket and slung over House. “Yes it is.”

House gave a groggy smile and settled down. Wilson knew he should give more sedative, but House’s system was very vulnerable right now. He bit his lip and administered a half dose.

Wilson put some of House’s sperm into a container with an egg from one of his female-morph Brothers to see if they would combine. It was an older egg, back from before the project went into overdrive and they all spent most of their time as males desperately inseminating as many females as possible, but it should still be viable. As a control, he put some of House’s sperm into another container along with a human egg. Wilson knew exactly what would happen—the same thing that always happened-- but he was out of ideas. They were all out of ideas, and swiftly running out of time, and all he had left was this step by step replication of facts that were already burned into his brain.

Why wouldn’t human gametes combine with his? The cells were programmed to unite and create more of their own kind, yet they never did. There must be some difference between Wilson’s chimerical sperm and House’s purely human ones, but if so it was one the mission couldn’t detect.

There were still some sperm left. Wilson put the last of it in a third dish. Then he decided to put his own in there too, to see if there might be any differences in behavior. Maybe human sperm were more aggressive, or had some subtle trick that his sperm didn’t. He’d never been convinced that they’d gotten the tails quite right. Wilson carefully stained his sperm and placed them with House’s. He’d wait a few hours for the computer to gather baseline comparison data before adding the human and chimera eggs.

Wilson checked on House. He was tolerating the treatment well. His vital signs were strong. He pulled a chair over and sat down beside him. He sent Sandy an electronic message that he wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be at work. She’d reschedule his appointments and get Brown to cover any emergencies.

House’s eyes flitted back and forth beneath his lids as he slept. Wilson hoped his dreams were good ones. Wilson’s own dreams didn’t bear remembering. Floods, snakes, plague, fire—it was like he’d tapped into old legends about the end of the world. Perhaps the human collective unconscious was whispering in his dreams. Or maybe he was just afraid.

Wilson wondered what House would think if he woke up now.

“I’d fix your leg, but I think you’d notice,” Wilson told his sleeping friend. “Besides, I don’t want to mess with your body without permission.” A small, House-like voice inside Wilson’s head accused him of hypocrisy. “Doing the Order’s work doesn’t count, and neither does saving your life. You’d do the same to me and you know it.”

He wished he could fix House’s leg. He wished he could fix House’s whole damn species. “We don’t think your kind is going to make it. At least you won’t be around for that part.” Homo sapiens’ expiration date would come well after House’s lifetime. “I haven’t told you the worst of it.”

It was comfortable, talking to House this way. Easier than talking to his Brothers, who looked to him for guidance, or to Father, who needed to trust in his strength.

“I don’t like to think about it. If things don’t improve you’re facing not just extinction, but possibly even planetary death. There are other intelligent, self-aware species on this world. So we—we can’t let that happen. It’s our calling to preserve sentient life. If it comes to that, if there’s no other way…we’ll pull the trigger ourselves. It hasn’t been done in a thousand years, but there’s a protocol.” Wilson gave a brittle laugh. There was always a protocol.

“The Elders will come out and have a council. If they reach consensus, they’ll eradicate humanity to save the other life here. I’m only a Brother so I don’t know much, but if I had to guess I’d say it would be something painless and incredibly fast. At least you won’t suffer. Most of you won’t even know what’s happening.” Wilson rubbed his face. What was wrong with him? Was he justifying this? “It’s the best we can do, and that doesn’t make it even close to okay.”

House slept on. He looked old lying there under the lights. His skin had the thinning, crepe paper look of age; it was wrinkled in places, and his hair was turning grey. When had he gotten old?

Wilson sighed. “I’m tired.” Although he was young by the reckoning of his kind, he felt old, and defeated.

“I was a few people before I was Wilson, and I’ve been Wilson for a long time. I’ve been to other worlds before Earth. I was…something like an otter, on a world called Fdo. I liked that. The descendants of my otter babies are swimming around there right now. I love doing the Savior’s work. I always thought that helping other races better themselves was my calling, but I’ve never been on a failed mission before. I’ve never had to consider committing genocide. That’s not what—how can I do that? How I can just go home and live with that failure?”

The door chimed as someone tried and failed to open it. The lab’s occupied, Wilson thought at whichever of his Brothers was on the other side of the door.

It chimed again, a longer note. Someone was curious. Go away, Wilson begged mentally. If they came in they’d see House, and Wilson would be in serious trouble. Find something else to do.

The door chirped and then Wilson knew who it had to be: the only person who could override his privacy lock. Wilson just had time to smooth his expression before Father entered the lab.

“Brother James,” he said mildly, his sharp eyes taking in the scene. “What is this?”

Wilson stammered out an explanation as Father circled the lab.

“Well,” Father said when Wilson had finished telling him about House’s medical crisis, “I’m glad you got sperm samples while you had him here. That was a good thought.”

Wilson shifted his weight, uncomfortable with the praise. He’d screwed up. He’d violated procedure. The mission needed to avoid detection, and they were very careful to do no harm to the peoples they encountered. Therefore no native was ever brought on board without several Brothers present in case of crisis. Father would be within his rights to reverse House’s treatment. He probably even should, because humanity had the technology to detect the changes in House’s body and would ask questions about it—and their military had the capability to damage the ship if they could find it. If Wilson were in charge, that was probably what he’d do. But he wasn’t in charge and he couldn’t just allow Father to intervene without pleading House’s case.

“We’re more than halfway through the procedure. Don’t make me stop now. They may suspect something happened but they can’t prove it and I can change his old medical records. House—he’s unorthodox, and he’s reckless, but he saves lives that no one else can. If only for that, he’s worth saving. I know I should have asked before I did this but don’t punish him for it. Please. It’s my fault.”

“I don’t blame you, son,” Father said gently. “The fault is mine for putting such a burden on you. I knew you were struggling and I didn’t make time to help. It’s not easy, what we do, and this assignment is the worst in a very long while. You’ve been a rock for us all to lean on, always there when we needed you, always getting the job done, always reliable.”

Wilson shook his head, feeling ashamed. “I slack off sometimes. I’ve made mistakes.” He gestured at House. “Obviously.”

“We all make mistakes. You’re out there in the field living among the natives. It’s only natural you become attached. It happens to all of us, but we have to keep the greater good uppermost in our minds. Do you want to go back home, James? I can ask the chapter house to send out someone else. You can take a vacation, remember your roots and the reasons why we do things the way we do.”

“Are you giving me a choice? If you are, I want to stay. I want to see this through.”

Father stood, silent, his head bowed. The moment stretched on. Finally he raised his head. Wilson tensed, waiting to hear the verdict, but Father didn’t speak. Instead he stared at the table.

“Why do you have a sample dish of stained sperm?”

Wilson, caught in the midst of his anxiety, took a moment to remember. Then he explained how he’d wanted to study the contrast between sperm from a human and a chimera.

Father nodded. “Then, why are they all violet?” There was a note of suppressed excitement in his voice.

“They aren’t,” Wilson protested, coming around the table to see.

They were. Each sperm in the dish was stained violet.


	4. Chapter Four

House was immediately forgotten. “Find out what happened,” Father ordered. “I’ll authorize anything you need to get the answer to this. I have an appointment and can’t follow this up myself, but I’ll expect to hear as soon as you know anything.”

Wilson, his face nearly planted in the sample dish, barely registered Father’s exit. The first thing he noted was that there were only about half as many sperm as there had been. He sent the image to the computer and magnified it.

Each sperm had another one inside it. One set had engulfed the other. Wilson watched as, over the course of several minutes, some sperm slowly dissolved inside the others until there were only fragments left. He’d never seen anything like it.

Wilson checked back over all the tests he was running. Perhaps there was something strange about the lot of them, or maybe he’d somehow contaminated the samples. In the first dish, however, everything looked normal. House’s sperm had gotten busy with the human egg, and by tomorrow there would be a little House baby just beginning to grow. In the second, House’s sperm had ignored the hybrid egg as all human sperm did. In the third dish, the sperm were still digesting each other. Nothing else was odd. Nothing else was growing in the nutrient bath, which argued against contamination. There were still fragments of one sperm inside each of the others. They weren’t being broken down further, at least not yet. Stranger still, the aggressive sperm seemed to have confined themselves to destroying one rival each, and no more.

Wilson increased the magnification. What he saw wasn’t possible, not by any science he understood. Yet there, in the support of the nutrient bath and under the stimulation of the fast growth solution, he saw the chromosomes lining up, ready to join with each other in strange new ways.

***

Wilson didn’t want to stop watching his new violet friends, but House needed tending. It would only take a moment to swap out the IV bags and check his vital signs, anyway.

His mind still on meiosis, Wilson went over to the monitors to check House’s heart rate. Something moved in his peripheral vision. He had just long enough to think, what? and then something grabbed him. A heavy weight held him down, pressing him into the thin mattress House had been lying on.

House. He must have woken up. He’d been under-sedated, and now he was awake and confused.

“House? What’s going on?”

“Hello, E.T.,” House said.

Or, change of theory, Wilson had left him under-sedated far too long. Fortunately he was a good liar. “You think I have Frank Oz’s arm up my ass? Look, you’re high. You took—I don’t even know what you took, but when I got here you were hallucinating. Whatever it is you’re seeing right now, it’s not real.”

“If I wasn’t sure before, I am now. E.T. wasn’t a puppet. I know you like to keep secrets, but this…”

“House!” Wilson sighed. Trust House to make things difficult. Wilson could follow the rules, but that might end up with House dead, which was not an option, or he could tell the truth. Which also was not an option. The final thing that wasn’t an option, the one that was most pressing at the moment, was allowing a native access to the ship.

“Hrrm-huh,” Wilson said, which House would take as clearing his throat. Inaudible to human ears, three low tones sounded from the computer, acknowledging the security code. The lab was now locked down. He and House were completely cut off from the rest of the ship. If this all went terribly wrong, at least everyone else would be safe. Elsewhere, alarms would be going off. By now Ryan and Father were aware of the trouble. Wilson trusted them to handle it. “Fine, all right. Let go. I’m an alien from another planet, here on a mission from God to save your world.”

At Wilson’s apparent capitulation, House released him.

Wilson straightened up. “How long have you been awake?”

House smirked. “I woke up when my feet were cold, and I’ve been awake off and on ever since. You need to work on your narcotics dosages if you want to keep someone under. I heard your whole soul-baring confession. I also heard you practically throw yourself on your sword when your dad came in and found me. Nice touch, by the way, introducing him to everyone as your real father.”

House walked around the lab, looking intently at the equipment but touching nothing. “I have to say, I’m disappointed. Here you are, this advanced space-faring race zipping around the universe meddling with other species, and you do it in the name of a mythical being.”

“Not mythical,” Wilson corrected. “God is overstating it, but it sounded catchy. The Savior we revere was real. I know, because we have recordings of her visit and items she left behind as proof.”

House’s eyebrows climbed up towards his hairline. “What?”

“Many years ago, my kind was on the brink of annihilating itself. A group of aliens came to our world, led by the woman we call the Savior. She taught us a better way. She changed us, showed us that we could be stronger by working together than by caring only about our own individual lives. When she left, we asked how we could repay her and her crew. She told us to go out and continue her work. So we did.”

House stared at him a long moment. “We can argue about that later. Show me what you’re doing here.”

***

By the next day, House and Wilson had discovered that pure human sperm would take chimera sperm into themselves, dissolve them, and develop two sets of chromosomes, each kept separate, each consisting of the usual 23 human blueprints that any self-respecting sperm would have, and each a mix of human and chimerical information. More exciting yet, these sperm would happily fertilize any egg they could reach, human or chimera…and generally these double sperm (as House called them) resulted in twins.

Equally as exciting were the results of House’s latest scans. The colonies of new tissue were happily settled into his body and repairing the damage to heart, liver and kidneys. House was as impressed with the improvements in his health as he was with the techniques Wilson had used to create them.

In between the samplings, observations, data collection and dissections, House peppered Wilson with questions: was this Wilson’s true form (if he’d been born a Caucasian male human, yes, otherwise no), was his entire family merely alien shills (naturally), how was Danny (fully recovered and never becoming partly human again), where did they all come from (three galaxies over), when was House going to be allowed to leave the lab (that was up to Father), how much longer was Wilson going to be on Earth (anywhere from another day to another few hundred years, depending on what his punishment was for breaking several rules), and what was going to happen next (a question Wilson sidestepped, because he didn’t know. He wished he did).

Then Father swept in, with four Brothers in tow. Isaac and Angelo took up places at either side of the door. Ryan stood against the far wall, and a novice Wilson didn’t recognize took up position a few steps to Father’s right. They were being careful.

“Hello, Greg,” Father nodded to him.

House nodded back. “Which movie is this, the one where you shoot me with your ray guns or the one where you remove my memory of the last twenty-four hours?”

“Neither,” Father said, and Wilson felt a surge of hope. “This is the movie where I offer you a job. James’ results are holding up. I need human sperm, and I need a lot of it. I also need humans to work in pairs with my team. There are other ways to accomplish that, but we’d all be happier working with cooperative natives.” He held up a hand to forestall House. “I’m not done. You are too old to use as you are. Your DNA will contain too many errors. We’d need to…improve parts of you. The question is, are you willing to join us, to work with James under intimate personal conditions, to submit to procedures and tests, and to keep everything secret? You have always seemed selfish, dismissive and filled with hate for your kind. How much do you care about your species? How much are you willing to give up to save them?”

Wilson held his breath. Don’t screw this up, he begged.

“Humans,” House began, “are a bunch of self-deluded idiots. We do stupid things trying to make ourselves happy. Most of us are unhappy anyway, but we try desperately to convince ourselves that we aren’t because we have no idea how to feel better about our meaningless, insignificant, pathetic lives. My way is to solve puzzles. I do it because I like it, and it gives me a reason to get out of bed in the morning even if the people I help can’t stand me. My species are morons but if I can do something interesting, useful, and non-pathetic, I will. Sign me up.”

“You know what to do,” Father said to Wilson. He left, taking his entourage with him.


	5. Chapter Five

...two weeks later

 

It was after six, and Wilson was just beginning to worry when the door to his office opened and House strode in. There was a bounce in his step that made Wilson grin.

"How was your first day back?"

"The team almost had matching coronaries when I came in without a limp this morning. Foreman's come by three times today to check up on me. He's taken two pee samples so far. If he asks for another one he's getting rat piss." I’m not sure whether they were all more relieved or more angry when I sent the case they’ve been failing to diagnose for a week and a half home after hearing her lisp.”

Wilson chuckled. "What did you tell them about your leg?"

House sat down on the couch. "I told them to be good little diagnosticians and figure it out themselves. That should keep them busy until the new wears off and they go back to obsessing about who's sleeping with who. You guys are genetic engineers par excellence," House added, as he stretched his legs out. "But you knew that. How are the numbers?”

"They're good. Climbing. We did it, House. It’s going to work."

House looked worried. “There are a few billion people on the planet. It will take years to change us enough to make a difference.”

“I know,” Wilson said. He did know but he couldn’t find it in himself to be pessimistic. Not now, when they had finally found the answer. “But I don’t think you understand just how determined we are, or how famous Earth is. This is the planet we almost lost, that we might still lose if everyone doesn’t pitch in to help. This, right here--this is the sexiest place to be. We’ve gotten a huge influx of novices and visiting guests all bursting with enthusiasm and eager to help. If you can manage not to do destroy yourselves for just a little while longer, I think you’ll be fine."

House nodded. “What happens to me?”

Wilson shrugged. “In a few years you and I retire. We become new people somewhere else on Earth and do our part again, then a few more times until it’s done.”

“I mean what happens when your project here is done,” House asked impatiently. “To me?”

That was the question Wilson didn’t like to think about. “To you? Nothing. We set you up in a nice place with a hefty bank account and you live your life untroubled by little non-green men.”

“And if that’s not what I want?”

“Is this a guessing game? If you want something set up for after we leave Earth, tell me.”

House paused, his eyes flicking over Wilson’s face. “What do you want?”

“You actually care what someone else wants? This isn’t --gratitude, is it?”

“Of course not,” House scoffed. “Don’t deflect. Answer the question.”

“I-” Wilson said, and trailed to a halt. His hands moved, inarticulate as his thoughts. “What are you talking about? What is this?”

House smiled. “You’ve answered my question. So now I’ll answer yours. When you head back to Mars or wherever, I’m going with you.”

Wilson froze. He had never considered this as a possibility,and now he had no idea at all what to say. Finally he choked out a garbled, “Why?”

“You have scientific knowledge that makes me feel like a freshman in college. I want it. You spend your life exploring space, meeting new species, playing God, and having a hell of a lot of sex. That’s pretty much my dream job. Besides, I’d be bored without you and you’d be lost without me. I’m coming with.”

Wilson swallowed. He’d always expected to eventually have to leave House behind. To bring House with him--that was huge. It would never work. House would be miserable. “Are you sure? There are these things called rules you’d have to follow. There are no other aliens in the Order. You’d be stranded alone far from home and everything you’ve ever known. You’d have to do things our way all the time. You’d hate it.”

House's calm gaze didn't waver. “No job is perfect, and every religion loves converts. I’ll be a sensation—the barbaric Earthman who signed up.” House said dismissing Wilson’s warnings. Then he sobered. “Unless this was all part of your deep cover ID, and you really do want to go without me. But I don’t think so.”

Wilson thought about that for a minute, thought about what it would be like to have House's particular brand of craziness in the Order. What it would be like to have House beside him on missions; House, who rebelled reflexively against authority, who would cut corners, have epiphanies, and who would drag Wilson into his crazy misadventures. Wilson had a huge blind spot where House was concerned. It had often caused him trouble here on Earth, it had nearly gotten him dismissed from the mission, and it would cause him endless trouble back home too. He’d have to lie for House. He’d have to run interference between House and whoever was in charge. This was a terrible, horrible idea.

Still, it would be good to have someone he could talk to. Someone he could just be himself with, without pretending he was strong or confident or had any answers at all. He thought back over how hard House fought for his convictions, and the things he'd been willing to do for his patients' greater good. He thought about what it could be now between them, now that House knew the truth. He thought about what it would be like to leave House, to wake up every day without him and to know that House was dust somewhere, gone forever and that he was forever alone.

When he looked up at House again he realized he'd been silent too long. House was staring at the floor, one hand absently rubbing his now-healed thigh.

Wilson realized he’d been quiet too long. He tried to think of something snarky yet subtly reassuring to say, something that would fit into their usual banter. But maybe they had gone past that now, because he couldn’t think of a thing. He finally said simply, “Of course I want you to come with me.”

House's hand stilled. “Okay,” he said. “I got this for you.” He fished around in his knapsack. He took something out and tossed it to Wilson.

It was a Men In Black dvd. Wilson smiled. “Dinner at my place?”

House tilted his head. “We could do that, but the pizzas are being delivered to my door about twenty minutes, and I'm hungry. You ready to go?”

Wilson nodded, stowing the dvd in his brief case. He was going to have to find a way to convert films onto data crystals eventually, but that was a problem for another day. Today he was going home with House to watch a movie, eat greasy food, and maybe listen to some blues if House was in the mood to play. He couldn’t think of anything he’d rather do.


End file.
